Pages

Welcome

Welcome! Artfully Musing is a blog dedicated to sharing art and the techniques and products used. I'll be showcasing collage, altered and mixed media art as well as miniature. I hope you'll check back often and are inspired. Thanks for visiting! Laura

Friday, October 31, 2014

I’m wrapping up Halloween 2014 with another
Edgar Allen Poe piece. The background is
made up of words from his books glued in strips to heavy cardstock. I soaked the garland in diluted black acrylic
paint to give it the dark look.

13th Hour
Clock Winner

Random.org has spoken and the winner
is (drum roll): JENNIFER

Thanks to everyone for your wonderful
comments on my blog, via email and on Facebook!!

I hope you have had lots of fun
creating Halloween art and crafts this season, I know I sure have. Now on to fall, Christmas and winter themed
art.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

It’s all
treats today and no tricks! For my
contribution to the Halloween Blog Party hosted by Vanessa
at A Fanciful Twist, I have all kinds of goodies for you.

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

First, is a giveaway of a 13th
Hour Halloween altered clock.To enter
in the drawing just leave a comment on this post or email me using the Email Me
button in the right hand column of the blog.On the morning of Halloween October 31st, I’ll use Random.org to select a
winner.

If you would like to make your own 13th
Hour Halloween clock below is a list of some of the Alpha Stamps supplies I
used for this project.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

“Boooooook
come home or make thyself known” cries Winnie in the movie Hocus Pocus. This movie is a must see for me every
Halloween season. It’s the only one of
my spooky movies that I can get my husband to watch with me. He loves the “I put a spell on you” scene when
the Sanderson sisters sing. You can tell
by the eye on the book that this apothecary draws inspiration from the Hocus
Pocus spell book.

Unlike the book in Hocus Pocus, which
is filled with spells; this one opens to reveal an apothecary.

The texture and patina on the covers
is achieved with tissue paper, stamped paper clay and Modern Masters Metal
Effects Iron Paint and Rust Activator. II’ve
been working with these products for years, and love them so much, I rusted an entire wall in my house.

You can find the Modern Masters
products on Amazon.com, online paint stores and some neighborhood paint
shops. Their products are easiest to
find in the US & Canada. For those
in the UK you can find them on Amazon.co.uk.
For other countries, the best thing is to Google the product name to see
if anyone in your country carries it.

Notice how the middle of the book
looks like pages - it’s really just an image, which you’ll find for
download further down in this post.

By using two of the configuration
books, you’ll have lots of room to display all kinds of cool bits and bobs.

VIDEO TUTORIAL

In the video tutorial below, I’ll
step you through the making the covers and assembling the book. If Halloween or this particular project is not your thing, you might still want to watch the video as the
techniques to create the cover can easily translate into other projects and
themes.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

The "House of Poe" is my ode to Edgar Allen Poe the master of the macabre. I love all of his stories and if you are a fan too, I hope you like this project. Within the larger piece are smaller items that could be stand alone pieces or part of a larger project. In the tutorial below, I'll show you how to make a clock from a matchbox, a table & desk from an Altoids tin, a bookcase coffin, a working hourglass and other bits and bobs.

MAIN STRUCTURE

I started with the leftover section
of the paper mache house accordion shrine. This is the piece leftover from the Little Red Ridding Hood project. You could certainly use the entire shire to make your own House of Poe.I started by cutting out a section of the house to create a niche. To make a larger house, I cut two 6” x 4” panels
from heavy chipboard and painted all of the pieces back.

Next, I papered the pieces front and
back.

In the meantime, while I was working
on the bits and bobs for the house, I realized that the house was not big
enough to accommodate all the stuff I had planned (yikes!). The solution was to cut a second set of 5” x
3”.panels.

To create dimension, the curtains are popped up from the panels (using double stick foam tape) and the corners are popped from the curtains. In the center
section, the orange curtain is popped up inside the niche and the grey curtain
is popped up in front of the niche. The
corners are also popped up from the grey curtain.

The window is made from a die-set
and is flanked by two pieces of Dresden
that look like shutters. I glued the
Dresden on with a hinge, so that I could bend the shutters forward. In the back ground is a skeleton specter.

I used double stick foam tape to
attach the chair and to pop it up from the wall.

DESK & TABLES

The room needed surfaces to display cool
stuff so I decide to create a desk out of the bottom of an Altoids tin and a
table out of the top.

I covered the bottom of the tin with
paper and Dresden. To darken the gold Dresden,
I first painted it black and then rubbed on Inca Gold Gilders paste. The feet of the table are made from resin
gables.

I glued the gables together to create a corner with the long gables in the front, painted
them black and rubbed them with the Gilders paste. I only made feet for the front as the back is
attached to the chair.

The last step was to add decorative swirls and a brass bat with a cat eye.

To make an inkwell and quill, I used a rondelle, bead cap and feather from my stash.

Other decorative items on the table
are books, a candelabra, papers, a letter and a key.

To make the table, I covered the
Altoids tin top with paper and trimmed it with lace and black
sweeper fringe.

The legs are made from a
wooden chess piece (turned upside down) and a cup (all painted black and rubbed with Inca Gold Gilder paste.

On the table you’ll find a candelabra,
open book (supported by other books in the back), a Ouija board, a rather large
spider in a glass
dome and a working hourglass.

To make the working hourglass, I used
two tiny
round bottles and two rondelles. I filled one of the bottles with sand and
glued the rims of the bottles together with Glossy Accents. I added the rondelles to the ends and a bat serves as decoration.

The base of the small round table is
made of the same chest piece as the legs on the Altoids tin table. I glued a rondelle to the top of the chest piece as without it, the top of the chest piece would stick up through the hole in
the table top (Santos
Doll Halos) making the surface of the table
uneven.

On the top of the table I glued a talon
holding an eyeball bead. I painted the
red veins on the eye with acrylic paint giving the eye a bloodshot appearance.

To make the matchbox clock, I started
by papering the matchbox case. I used a
black marker to color the ends of the matchbox drawer. Next using chain and eye pins, I attached
spiders for weights and a scull bead for the pendulum.

I cut a Dresden
scroll in half and glued the halves to the top and bottom of the case.

I used the template from the previous Coffin Apothecary project to create the the bookcases. Click here if you missed the template and tutorial. http://artfullymusing.blogspot.com/2014/09/coffin-apothecary-with-raven-wings-new.htmlI reduced the size of the template to fit on the wall.The book case is filled with books and other creepy decor. The books are just a facade made of book spines from the Antique Leather Book Spines Collage Sheet. I backed them with cardstock and used layers of double stick foam tape to attach them to the back of the bookcase.

I added the gargoyle bead to the top the globe using a toothpick, which is glued to the back and runs through the hole in the bead. The final touch is the bat on the bottom.

The base for the house is made from thick chipboard that in the back, matches the angles of the walls and is straight in the front. Once I glued the walls together I used them to trace the the angles on the base.

I covered the base with decorative paper.

The Front

The tombstones are first painted black. Next, I stippled them in dark grey and then in a lighter grey to give them the appearance of stone.

The trees are made from real tree branches that are painted black.

I used decorative paper to cover the front and then the same architectural pieces as I used in the inside of the house. For the front door, I used the entire architectural piece and cut out layers and attached them with double stick foam tape to make the front door pop.